i always forget the real name for these (zouri?) but anyway, i bought some tatami shoes with rubber soles (=1,900 yen) a while ago and this week it's gotten to 17°C and i've finally been able to wear them outside the house. i thought people'd be staring, but the more time i spend here the more i realize traditional clothes aren't actually as rare as it seems (and i suspect they're more common the further away you get from the city), so i decided to try it.

end result is, most people don't give you a second glance. people stare a LOT LOT more by me simply having my white cane out or by me speaking english (btw they stare more when we speak english than swedish i think, but most japanese people can't tell the difference between english and swedish either so maybe it's just my imagination). my wife said that at just a glance you probably can't tell that these are tatami shoes and not just normal sandals, and that based on what someone told her yesterday japanese people don't seem to realize that japanese traditional shoes/socks aren't actually international (i guess because flip-flops exist they think of them as exactly the same thing?).

also i'd barely been able to sleep for the past few days, i think it's unconscious stress from being a few months late on my medicine or something, though after i ate some pineapple i got sleepy so it could be a deficiency on top of that. anyway i found the one clinic in sendai for my thing which supposedly has english-speaking doctors and know exactly how to get there now, but their WEBSITE has zero info about or in english and there's no email. i'm asking if i can get the SIM cards with a classmate who's done it for herself before today, and then i can try calling the clinic to make an appointment. it'll be my first call in japanese and i definitely don't know all the vocabulary so i'll have to research/study a bit first...